SIMON SMITH - Beverley win sets up huge encounter

Simon Smith

Saturday’s win at Beverley has presented us with the opportunity to ensure our promotion hopes are in our own hands.

We had five cup finals to play going into Saturday’s huge game, and now we have four.

If we win those games, I’m very confident we will win promotion from Yorkshire One, but at the moment that is some way off.

Beverley tried to smash straight through us on Saturday and set their stall out early.

No quarter was given whatsoever and our forwards had to front up and fight really hard to provide us with the platform to move the ball out wide and hurt them, and that is exactly what we did.

We know we can do a lot of damage to teams if we use the ball well and get it out to the wings, but you have to earn the right to do that, especially on Saturday at Beverley when they had a bigger pack than us.

The whole side impressed me on Saturday, I think the scoreline flattered Beverley somewhat, but we were flat out on our feet late on and they took full advantage.

You can do all the training you want, but there is no substitute for game time and you could see we were short on match fitness, which is understandable.

We are blessed with several match-winners in our squad, and one of those is Tom Harrison.

Tom moved to number 15 this week, with Tom Ratcliffe at fly-half and James Perrett at outside-centre, we are so lucky to have flexible players who can adapt to a few different positions, and this worked nicely on Saturday.

Tom Harrison’s superb solo try, which completely stunned Beverley and caught them off guard, came at a crucial time in the game just after half-time.

We were leading 12-8 and won a penalty. I told Matty Jones that we should kick for goal, but he decided we should kick for touch and take the line-out.

Tom Harrison showed what a hell of a player he is by spotting a gap, kicking over the Beverley players and running on to touch down.